Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies: Home

Abstract:
Disasters result from the interaction of social vulnerability and natural hazards, which combine to put certain groups of people at greater risk than others. This understanding of vulnerability and risk is crucial to our efforts to address the differential impacts of a disaster on men, women, children, the elderly, and the physically challenged. Without addressing gender issues and issues relating to social vulnerabilities, there cannot be effective disaster risk reduction or adequate resilience. In Sub-Saharan Africa, despite several decades of analysis and study, disaster risk reduction does not adequately address issues of social vulnerability. This is the same case in Kenya as revealed in a study carried out in Budalangi Flood plains, Busia County, at the mouth of River Nzoia. Kenya has passed legislation, and there are some innovative interventions, but the way in which the sector has dealt with social vulnerabilities has been to focus more on the �vulnerable groups� rather than on the social systems, community structures and power relations that keep them vulnerable. Generally, disaster risk reduction in Kenya is at a nascent stage with disjointed policies and legislation that do not seem to factor in the gender�differentiated impact of disasters to the vulnerable communities. The objective of this paper is to contribute to existing evidence that there is differentiated vulnerability and impact to disasters yet the interventions that are not gender-sensitive. I have recommended policy guidelines for gender-sensitive interventions for this community vulnerable to the flooding disaster to ensure sustainable development.

Keywords: disaster risk reduction; gender, vulnerability, flooding disaster, livelihoods

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